Love-pain, pain-love: pain transfigured

On this Earth, whoever loves suffers.

Any sensitive soul that loves cannot allow itself to laugh while participating in the tribulations of its dear ones and contemplating the state in which poor humanity is found. Alexandrina affirms this:

I loved and, because I loved, I suffered. S (16-02-51)

But those who suffer do not always know how to love!

And pain without love, at times incomprehensible, leads to desperation.

The true Christian learns to put up with pain for love’s sake. He has Faith in the saving power of his pain when it is offered in union with the sufferings of Christ, who continues the Redemption throughout the centuries by means of the sufferings of His members.

Let us remember that in Fatima Our Lady invited the three little Shepherds to suffer for the salvation of the souls. And with what an impetus of love the children corresponded!

The Pope John Paul II, in the encyclical letter “Salvifici doloris” wrote, among other things:

“As soon as a man takes up his cross, uniting himself spiritually to the cross of Christ, the salvific sense of suffering is revealed to him.

The man does not discover this sense on a human level, but on the level of the suffering of Christ.

But at the same time, from this level of Christ, that salvific sense of suffering descends to the level of the man and becomes, in some way, his personal reply.

And then the man finds in his suffering interior peace and finally spiritual joy”.

We must understand that these words were not written by one speaking abstractly of the Christian value of suffering, without having experienced it!

This encyclical letter was written in 1984, after John Paul II,  having lived through the attempt on his life in 1981, was beset by many other sufferings arising from his roll of Head of the Catholic Church.

Jesus says:

“To love and to suffer, to suffer and to love: it is the secret of perfection, it is the greatest means of salvation.” S (26-12-52)

Let us remember what Saint Padre Pio writes to Anita of Jesus (Epistolary III, 4^th letter, p. 67):

“The love of the cross has been always a distinctive sign of elect souls.

Our seraphic Father (St Francis) well understood that without the love of the cross there can be little advance in the way of Christian perfection”.

Our Alexandrina, a master of the ways of love and pain, affirms:

To stem pain

You only have to staunch the flow of love.

S (26-08-55)

The love of Jesus

Jesus waits with opened arms to receive me: He waits for me full of smiles and love.

He wants to possess me, wants to burn my coldness in the furnace of His divine Heart. S (26-07-45)

Jesus asks for the love of all hearts with intense ardour.

What sadness: to love and not to be loved! To love and to be offended! S (06-06-42)

Jesus has His divine Heart in flames: it burns, burns continuously for us.

How great is the love of Jesus and how great is the ingratitude of souls!

Oh, if I could open my heart and show the world the tenderness of divine love!

It is a love that makes the lover forget pain.  S (29-03-45)

He loves when He consoles and loves when He wounds: it is always love, love without equal. S (26-12-52)

The more I ran away from Jesus (Alexandrina expresses the sentiments of the sinner), the more my soul saw His divine Heart following me and the better I understood that love with which He loved me. The more I ran away, the more He ran towards me to attract me to Himself, and the more I made Him suffer. S (02-02-51)

I experienced in myself a sense of love (Alexandrina relives the sentiments of Jesus and of humanity) and of very strong ingratitude.

The love was an immense love: it filled the heavens and the earth; the ingratitude was so great and so deep-seated. It was opposed to this love, a love that sailed over everything like a firm small and sure boat.

I received the ingratitude without ceasing to love. S (13-07-45)

Jesus says to Alexandrina:

Jesus infused in your heart the burning fire of His divine Heart: it is a fire that loves, it is a fire that consumes.

It is love that I want, that I insist you give to souls. S (09-03-51)

The soul that loves radiates love and allows to be transparent around itself the strength of its love.

Fire, when it ignites, always leaves evidence that it has burnt.

Love Me, let me burn you, take my fire, my divine love, to souls”. S (09-07-48)

Jesus directs His message to all of us:

Come to Me all you that suffer and enter into my divine Heart.

Come to Me all you who yearn to love Me and drink from this fountain that never runs dry!

I am love, love, infinite love and eternal love.

Come, come to Me all of you, console my divine Heart!

Say me continuously that you love Me and ask Me constantly for my love.

My divine Heart wants to give Itself, to give Itself, It wants to fly to all hearts.

My daughter, my beloved daughter, make me loved! S (14-03-52)

Let’s see an exhortation of Alexandrina:

O world, o souls, how Jesus loves us! Let us love Him in return!

Our pain is nothing compared with his:

His was an infinite pain, it was the pain of a God become man.

Let us love Him without stopping, let us love Him night and day!

My heart goes out like a little lost bird begging for love, always begging love for Jesus. S (03-05-53)

Let us accept Alexandrina’s invitation!

Let us undertake to repay the love of Jesus so that He can say to us, just as he says to Alexandrina:

“You love me when you cry,
when you smile:
You love me in pain and in joy.
You love me in silence or speaking.
You love me in everything.
Day and night, at each moment,
your sufferings and your love
rise up to Heaven”.
S (21-03-47)